AN    ADDRESS 


PRONOUNCED    BEFORE 


Cjje  J0*w  of  Conbwcatixnt 


TRINITY    COLLEGE, 

JULY   16th,   1856. 


Rev.  A.  N.  LITTLEJOHN,  A.  M. 

RECTOR  OP  ST.  PAUL'S  CHURCH,  NEW  HAVE.V,  CT. 


larifari: 


PRESS  OF  CASE,  TIFFANY  AND  COMPANY. 

M.DCCC.LVI. 


%a  tk  Italffi 


ovist   of   Con  It  oration 


€rttrittj  CnlbgF, 


(^antpliatm  fottf)  fofco**  fotefajs  ii  is  ^rtnUJCr, 


^  ft  &  r  *  s  s    is    fU  H  c  a  t  *  & , 


at^IdDE 


ADDRESS. 


Mr.  Dean  and  Gentlemen  of  the';House  of  Convocation: 
Generations  like  individuals  usually  know  more  of 
their  virtues  than  their  faults.  They  are  quick  to  dis- 
cern their  advantages  and  to  make  the  most  of  every 
supposed  element  of  superiority.  The  lights  rather 
than  the  shadows  of  life  engross  them.  They  linger 
fondly  around  the  tokens  of  growth,  but  avoid  those  of 
decay.  Pride  has  its  root  in  the  sense  of  expanding 
power  and  advancing  greatness.  Blind  conceit  and 
vain-glorious  boasting  are  the  spontaneous  outgrowth 
of  eras  distinguished  for  novel  combinations  of  old 
forces,  for  restless  activity  and  brilliant  results  in  the 
sphere  of  national  achievement.  It  is  natural  for  a 
generation  that  finds  itself  mated  with  great  plans  in 
government,  industry,  and  science,  and  identified  with 
unexampled  triumphs  in  every  field  of  human  energy, 
to  claim  more  for  itself  than  it  ought,  to  overrate  the 
present  as  compared  with  the  past,  and  to  adopt  false 
standards  of  judgment  in  order  to  give  currency  to  ex- 
travagant pretensions. 

Our  own  time  certainly  furnishes  no  exception  to 


6 

remarks  of  this  character,  but  rather  a  most  apt  in- 
stance of  their  truth.  Its  strength  is  vitiated  by  van- 
ity. Its  glory  is  soiled  and  degraded  by  indiscriminate 
boasting.  It  is  an  age  of  wonders  and  an  age  of  plati- 
tudes, remarkable  at  once  for  good  sense  and  folly, 
vigor  and  weakness,  realities  and  shams.  Judging 
from  much  of  the  published  thought  of  the  day,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  animus  of  social  and  industrial  life,  one 
would  suppose  it  to  be  among  the  established  convic- 
tions of  this  generation  that  the  human  race  had  just 
broken  its  shell,  and  begun  to  comprehend  the  ma- 
chinery of  progress,  that  civilization  and  literature,  hu- 
manity and  brotherhood  were  original  creations  of  the 
present,  and  that  the  past  survived  only  as  a  treasury 
of  interesting  historical  incident.  It  can  not  be  doubt- 
ed that  such  views  have  much  to  do  with  the  admitted 
self-sufficiency  of  the  age,  and  that  they  prevail  to  a 
degree  which  renders  the  working  million  well  nigh  in- 
sensible to  the  debt  they  owe  preceding  generations. 
With  such  a  spirit  abroad  it  becomes  the  duty  of  all 
representative  thinkers  and  speakers  whom  occasions 
like  this  elevate,  for  the  hour,  into  organs  of  a  more 
just  and  sober  reflective  sentiment,  to  call  attention  to 
a  truer  idea  of  the  relations  of  the  present  to  the  past; 
and  while  overlooking  no  real  merit  of  the  living  to  do 
strict  justice  to  the  labors  of  the  dead.  It  is  this  mo- 
tive that  will  guide  and  govern  me  in  the  line  of 
thought  I  now  intend  to  pursue. 

Taking  for  granted,  then,  the   superiority   of  the 


present  to  the  past,  it  is  my  purpose  to  ascertain 
the  grounds  of  that  superiority,  to  discriminate  those 
elements  of  it  which  have  been  inherited  from  other 
times,  from  those  which  the  age  itself  may  claim  to 
have  produced,  or  more  briefly,  Tradition  from  Inven- 
tion. This  being  done,  I  shall  consider  some  significant 
inferences  justified  by  the  results  of  the  inquiry. 

This  earth  is  an  old  farm  which  has  been  stocked 
with  toilers  from  the  beginning.  Harvest  has  followed 
harvest  in  response  to  their  laborious  energy.  The 
riches  of  to-day  have  come  from  no  single  reaping. 
They  stand  rather  as  the  aggregated  fruit  of  the  labors 
of  the  race  through  the  continuous  flow  of  its  genera- 
tions. The  owner  of  this  world-farm,  under  whom  all 
mortal  workers  are  tenants  at  will,  has  occasionally  in- 
tervened to  prevent  its  utter  impoverishment  and  des- 
olation, by  changing  the  seed  as  well  as  the  mode  of 
tillage.  These  interventions  have  created  the  eras  of 
history — crises  when  new  forces  have  entered  the  soil, 
and  new  hands  been  introduced  to  plant  and  gather. 
The  civilization,  the  wealth,  the  power,  the  glory  of 
the  present  are  essentially  the  alluvium  of  the  past, 
drawn  from  decayed  and  now  vanished  masses  of  life. 
Each  generation,  as  it  passes  on,  hands  in  its  deposit, 
and  for  the  time  is  invested  with  a  trusteeship  of  the 
mighty  inheritance.  If  there  be  any  superiority  of  one 
age  over  another,  it  must  consist  not  in  the  superior 
size  of  the  inheritance  intrusted  to  its  care,  but  in  the 
relatively  superior  value  of  its  additions  to  that  inherit- 


8 

ance.  It  is  this,  and  this  only  that  gives  significance 
and  worth  to  any  age,  regarded  as  an  integral  part  of 
history.  If,  then,  our  own  time  be  in  advance  of  others 
gone  before  it ;  if  it  have  more  force  and  meaning,  it  must 
be  because  it  has  done  more  to  increase  the  common 
patrimony  of  the  race.  An  inquiry,  then,  into  the  na- 
ture of  its  contributions  to  the  world's  stock,  will  be 
virtually  an  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  its  conceded 
superiority. 

To  give  immediate  shape  and  point  to  this  inquiry,  I 
shall  anticipate  its  conclusion  by  affirming  the  general 
proposition,  that  the  contributions  of  this  age,  and  in 
the  main  of  every  age  since  the  beginning  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  have  consisted  not  in  multiplying  the  perma- 
nent and  essential  instrumentalities  of  progress,  but  in 
results  accumulated  by  an  energetic  use  of  such  instru- 
mentalities. I  go  back  to  the  Christian  era  because 
God  then  interposed  for  the  last  time  to  reconstruct,  on 
a  distinctively  divine  basis,  the  whole  machinery  of 
human  progress.  The  Incarnation  was  the  inlet  of 
forces  not  only  new,  but  mightier  than  any  before 
known  to  the  world.  It  was  in  such  a  sense  the  sem- 
inal principle  of  human  advancement,  that  all  other 
agencies  were  graduated  by  their  relation  to  it.  Some 
of  these  agencies  dated  back  to  earlier  covenants  be- 
tween God  and  man;  some  were  drawn  from  the  de- 
cayed fabric  of  pagan  life;  while  others  came  into 
being  as  spontaneous  products  of  the  new  principle. 
Whatever  their  origin  or  grade,  they  were  all  advanced 


by  the  Incarnation,  or  the  Gospel  system,  of  which  it 
was  the  living  root,  to  a  higher  platform,  and  adjusted 
to  a  vaster  sphere. 

The  term  progress,  when  correctly  defined,  stands 
for  a  perpetually  increasing  result,  always  representa- 
tive of  the  labors  which  have  produced  it.  Those 
labors  are  directed  and  molded  by  certain  forms  or 
instrumentalities.  These  instrumentalities  are  some  of 
them  institutions  for  nurture  and  discipline;  some  of 
them  principles  and  modes  of  influence  organized  into 
systems;  some  moral  in  their  nature,  and  some  physical; 
some  more  or  less  immediately  from  God,  some  solely 
the  product  of  human  invention;  some  essential  as  to 
function  and  permanent  as  to  time,  and  some  contin- 
gent and  mutable.  I  confine  myself  in  the  proposition 
which  I  have  advanced,  to  the  essential  and  perma- 
nent— to  those  which  appeal  to  and  are  operated  by 
the  reason,  the  conscience,  the  moral  and  social  affec- 
tions— to  those  which  shape  character  for  both  worlds, 
and  address  the  spirit  as  well  as  the  intelligence  of  man; 
binding  together  as  with  sinews  of  God's  own  making, 
each  present  age  with  the  final  term  of  progress,  viz., 
the  restoration  of  God's  image  in  the  human  soul. 

Instrumentalities  so  defined  may  be  divided  again 
into  primary  and  secondary.  The  primary  are  from 
God,  either  in  the  sense  of  specific  revelation  and 
enactment,  or  in  the  sense  of  resting  upon  divine 
sanction,  and  acting  with  the  universality  and  force 
of  necessary  law.  These  are  coextensive  with  the 
2 


10 

domain  of  all  true  civilization,  and  are  subject  to  no 
other  fluctuations  than  those  which  arise  out  of  the 
administration  of  divine  powers  by  earthly  agents.  Of 
this  class,  to  name  here  only  institutions^  are  the 
Church,  the  State,  and  the  Family — the  three  leading 
spheres  of  human  development — the  three  perpetual 
points  of  contact  between  individual  and  organic  life. 
Of  the  secondary  sort,  on  the  other  hand,  are  those 
which  consist  of  native  powers  of  humanity — of  forces 
whose  origin  and  control  are  strictly  within  the  sphere 
of  human  agency,  as  Keason,  Sensibility,  Imagination, 
Conscience,  and  their  correlative  modes  of  expression, 
Philosophy,  Art,  Literature,  and  Ethics.  These  instru- 
mentalities, and  such  as  these,  are  a  tradition,  an  inher- 
itance. They  are  not  an  invention  of  any  one  age,  or 
any  one  series  of  ages.  Each  generation,  as  it  enters 
on  its  work,  finds  them  in  being,  and  submits  itself 
instinctively  to  their  molding  power.  They  supply 
the  arterial  blood  of  each  living  present,  and  baptize 
into  their  own  mighty  inspirations,  the  successive  labors 
of  mankind.  At  one  time  they  appear  as  foundation 
stones  to  the  structure  of  civilization;  at  another,  as 
perennial  fountains'  of  cleansing  water;  at  another,  as 
movable  arks,  within  which  are  shrined  the  best  treas- 
ures of  the  race.  They  may  be  modified.  They  may 
be  developed  into  new  applications  and  invigorated  by 
new  accessions  of  force.  It  may  be  difficult  to  separate 
them  from  the  results  which  they  produce,  or  to  dis- 
criminate their  essential  functions  from  their  contingent 


11 


effects.  Like  all  profound  agents,  whether  of  matter 
or  spirit,  they  may,  after  reaching  certain  limits,  pass 
off  into  a  vagueness  of  shape  and  relation,  which  can 
neither  be  described  nor  measured.  Still  their  identity 
remains.  They  have  a  definite  place  in  the  laboratory 
of  progress.  Compared  to  the  minor  and  auxiliary 
influences  which  they  originate,  they  are  as  the  natural 
elements  of  air,  light,  fire,  and  water,  to  their  several 
uses  by  man — subject  to  endless  modifications,  produc- 
tive of  boundless  power,  and  working  changes  wide  as 
the  vast  theater  of  being,  and  yet  the  same  in  substance, 
relation,  and  design. 

With  this  explanation  of  the  instrumentalities  of  pro- 
gress, I  return  to  the  proposition  affirmed  at  the  outset, 
viz.,  that  the  contributions  to  the  world's  stock  of  this 
age,  and  in  the  main  of  every  age  since  the  Christian 
era,  have  consisted  not  in  multiplying  the  essential 
powers  of  progress,  but  in  results  accumulated  by  the 
use  of  those  powers;  in  other  words,  that  the  essential 
powers  of  human  progress  are  a  gift,  an  inheritance,  a  tra- 
dition; not  an  invention  of  any  single  present  or  series  of 
presents. 

Time  would  fail  me  to  run  this  discussion  into  de- 
tails. And,  indeed,  no  elaborate  argument  or  minute 
analysis  is  necessary.  The  truth  of  the  proposition  will 
sufficiently  appear  from  a  bare  enumeration  of  those 
permanent  and  essential  factors  of  a  progressive  life. 
Having  already  alluded  to  most  of  them,  I  need  not 
repeat  them.     Not  one  of  them  can  be  named  that 


12 


does  not  carry  us  back  to  the  sources  of  history;  not 
one  that  does  not,  in  its  contact  with  the  living,  remind 
them  of  long  lines  of  the  vanished  dead,  on  whom  they 
once  breathed  the  spirit  of  might,  and  flashed  the  glory 
of  an  immortal  destiny;  not  one  that  does  not,  upon  a 
brow  of  strength,  and  a  form  of  elastic  youth,  wear  the 
frosts  of  venerable  age. 

But  proof  quite  as  tangible  and  conclusive  may  be 
had  from  a  cursory  inspection  of  what  our  age  has 
really  done.  And  I  may  here  remark,  that  the  view  I 
advocate  does  not  make  it  necessary  to  hide  or  depre- 
ciate any  thing  which  our  time  has  produced.  As  a 
generation  it  has  done  well  with  its  inherited  riches. 
It  has  put  out  its  talent  at  a  rate  of  interest  almost 
usurious.  It  has  ploughed  deep  and  gleaned  close. 
A  more  thrifty  generation  has  never  lived;  nor  one  of 
more  varied  and  ceaseless  activity.  It  has,  to  a  degree 
which  has  no  parallel  in  history,  conquered  obstacles, 
discovered  methods,  and  multiplied  opportunities  for 
brain,  and  heart,  and  hand.  In  Art  it  has  done  some- 
thing; in  Letters  more.  In  Philosophy,  while  it  has  not 
been  without  displays  of  vigorous  genius,  it  has  on  the 
whole  done  little  else  than  interpret  and  organize 
results  already  attained.  It  is  in  the  department  of 
Physical  Science,  and  on  the  material,  external  side  of 
civilization,  that  we  must  look  for  its  truly  memorable 
achievements.  And  here,  indeed,  we  find  them  in 
diversity  and  grandeur,  distancing  all  competition. 
And  yet,  were  a  full  and  fair  summary  of  the  labors 


13 


of  our  time  attempted,  it  would  show  that,  while  it 
has  made,  in  kind  and  amount,  rich  additions  to  the 
world's  treasury,  it  has  left  unaltered  in  number,  and 
but  slightly  modified  in  tendency,  the  higher  factors  of 
moral  progress.  It  may  be  objected  that  as  results  one 
day,  become  causes  the  next,  any  period  that  is  prolific 
of  effects,  must  have  a  place  more  or  less  distinguished, 
in  the  sjDhere  of  positive  causation.  This  may  be 
granted,  and  yet  the  claims  of  the  time  will  not  be 
thereby  advanced  beyond  the  estimate  here  given.  It 
is  not  contended  that  it  has  done  nothing  to  increase 
the  momentum  of  the  world's  movement.  The  con- 
trary is  freely  conceded.  It  is  only  urged  that  it  has 
not  multiplied  those  original  and  essential  factors  of 
human  advancement  which  every  modern  age  has 
received  at  the  hands  of  tradition. 

But  to  place  in  a  yet  clearer  light  the  central 
thought  of  this  discourse — the  superiority,  namely,  of 
Tradition  to  Invention;  of  inheritance  to  present 
accumulation — let  us  take  in  a  wider  circuit  than  that 
of  the  present,  and  inquire  to  what  extent,  if  any,  the 
great  instrumentalities  heretofore  named  have  been 
modified,  enriched,  and  expanded  by  modern  life.  Let 
us  begin  with  the  first  in  rank,  as  it  is  the  first  in 
power,  the  Church.  Having  regard  to  its  first  estate, 
it  will  not  be  claimed  that  it  has  undergone  any  change 
for  the  better.  It  may  be  urged,  indeed,  that  as  it  is 
divine  in  its  origin,  constitution,  doctrine,  and  offices — 
that  as  it  is  God's  immediate  representative  in  human 


14 


affairs,  it  is  incapable  of  improvement  by  man.  It 
were  well  if  the  generations  whose  hopes  it  has  anima- 
ted, and  whose  sorrows  it  has  soothed,  could  stand  at 
the  bar  of  history  and  successfully  claim,  not  to  have 
enriched  and  ennobled  it;  but  only  not  to  have  mutila- 
ted and  degraded  it.  But  so  far  from  modern  life,  or 
mediseval  life,  or  any  other  life  of  man,  having  secured 
for  it  any  absolute  increase  of  strength,  or  advanced  it 
to  a  higher  excellence  of  spirit  or  structure,  it  is  now, 
as  it  has  been  for  three  centuries,  the  leading  problem 
of  the  best  minds  and  hearts,  to  recover  its  lost  unity, 
to  revive  its  early  discipline,  to  reproduce  in  living 
forms,  its  once  profound  and  all-embracing  charity. 
The  piety  and  the  learning  of  divided  Christendom,  at 
this  moment,  after  taking  counsel  of  history,  and  of  the 
Church's  original  charter,  are  fast  coming  to  the  con- 
clusion that  all  unity  is  impossible,  except  as  we  revert 
to  its  original  terms,  and  return  to  the  point  of  depart- 
ure from  it.  The  waters  of  healing  are  behind  us. 
The  great  master-lights  which  are  to  reveal  the  true 
glory  and  lasting  supremacy  of  the  Spouse  of  Christ, 
flame  up  over  our  backs.  They  burn  still,  where  God 
kindled  them.  They  can  be  found  only  amid  the 
splendors  of  the  first  sunrise  of  the  Christian  Faith. 
And  thence,  if  at  all,  must  drop  the  fires  which  shall 
illumine  the  darkened  altars,  and  burn  away  the  dis- 
eases of  our  palsied,  dismembered,  and  stammering 
religion.  Human  agency,  then,  has  done  nothing  to 
invigorate,  but  much  to  injure  and  weaken  this  most 


15 

potent  as  well  as  potential  of  instrumentalities — itself 
entirely  a  tradition  from  God  to  man,  owing  nothing  to 
mortal  suggestion  or  invention. 

Let  us  now  see  what  modern  life  has  done  for  the 
State.  Its  work  here  has  been  undeniably  great.  A 
wide  gulf  separates  the  citizen  of  to-day  from  the  citizen 
of  the  early  centuries.  An  immense  advance  has  been 
made  in  the  guarantees  and  facilities  of  justice,  in  the 
protection  of  rights,  and  the  extension  of  civil  fran- 
chises. The  mutual  relations  of-  the  State  and  the 
individual,  are  better  defined,  and  more  harmoniously 
adjusted.  Appropriating  the  experience,  as  well  as  the 
materials  furnished  by  the  decline  and  fall  of  ancient 
empires,  and  gathering  into  itself  the  patient  and  elas- 
tic vigor  of  new  races,  modern  life  began  the  work  of 
political  construction.  It  carried  the  State  through 
the  anarchies  of  feudalism,  and  then  through  the 
tyrannies  of  absolute  monarchy.  Holding  fast  the 
precious  burd'en,  it  toiled  and  wrestled  along  a  path 
of  storms  and  revolutions,  until  it  substituted  govern- 
ments of  laiv  for  governments  of  will — governments 
administered  for  the  good  of  the  many,  for  govern- 
ments administered  for  the  glory,  or  at  most,  the  wel- 
fare of  the  few.  And  as  a  result,  we  see  to-day  more 
beneficence  in  the  State,  and  more  freedom  in  the  indi- 
vidual. We  bow  to  the  majesty  of  constitutions,  not 
to  the  haughty  grandeur  of  thrones  and  scepters.  We 
are  ruled  by  the  mandates  of  the  representative  prin- 
ciple, and  not  by  the  caprices  of  monarchs.     Modern 


16 

life,  then,  has  done  a  vast  work  for  the  State.  It  has 
modified  it  in  favor  of  law,  liberty,  and  intelligent 
obedience.  It  has  enriched  its  resources  and  expanded 
its  legitimate  powers. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  it  began 
this  work  when  one  section  of  the  world's  life  was 
dying  out,  and  another  was  entering  into  being.  It 
began  it,  too,  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the  State  as  an 
instrumentality  for  enforcing  order  and  exercising  dis- 
cipline. It  found  the  State  existing  under  various 
forms,  but  in  all  of  them  claiming  to  represent  that 
fundamental  and  necessary  principle  out  of  which  all 
government  is  evolved — the  unity  of  reason  amid 
diversity  of  wills.  It  succeeded  to  modes  of  political 
administration  which  acknowledged  responsibility  for 
the  possession  of  power,  and  employed  symbols  of 
moral  authority  fitted  to  command  respect  and  enforce 
submission.  It  moved  on,  too,  under  the  guidance,  and 
armed  with  the  sanctions  of  a  system,  which,  while  it 
proclaimed  government  to  be  an  ordinance  of  God, 
taught  clearer  and  sublimer  views  of  the  rights  and 
destinies  of  individuals.  Modern  life,  then,  though  it 
has  done  much,  has  not  done  all  for  the  existing  State. 
It  has  largely  modified  and  variously  improved,  but 
not  created  it.  And,  if  now,  the  best  governments  of 
the  world  exercise  their  functions  on  a  higher  plane  of 
influence  than  those  of  the  old  Pagan  era,  it  is  due,  not 
so  much  to  any  inventions,  or  labors,  or  experiments  of 
man,  as  to  the  resistless  power  of  those  Christian  prin- 


17 

ciples — themselves  a  tradition — which  have  asserted, 
through  all  changes,  and  with  every  form  of  authority, 
every  resource  of  persuasion,  the  sacredness  of  law  and 
the  grandeur  of  the  individual;  the  necessity  for  con- 
centrated power  and  inevitable  accountability  for  its 
use. 

I  come  now  to  the  last  of  the  three  organic  insti- 
tutions of  society — last  as  we  pass  from  society  down 
to  the  individual — the  Family.  In  the  Family,  the 
Church  and  the  State  have  their  perpetual  generation, 
as  they  exist  there  also  in  perpetual  solution.  The 
discipline  of  the  Family  anticipates  and  prepares  the 
way  for  the  discipline  of  the  Church  and  the  State.  It 
is  the  true  officina  gentium  et  ecclesiarum.  Modern  life 
has  added  to  the  graces  and  multiplied  the  refinements 
of  the  domestic  relation.  It  has  removed  some  unjust 
inequalities  between  the  sexes.  It  has  secured  for 
woman  a  more  liberal  and  intelligent  appreciation. 
It  has  provided  new  and  important  auxiliaries  in  the 
work  of  youthful  training.  I  apprehend  it  to  be  clear- 
ly demonstrable,  however,  that  the  Christian  family  of 
the  Nineteenth  century,  is  in  all  essential  regards,  no 
better  governed,  nor  its  best  interests  better  cared  for, 
than  the  Christian  family  of  the  Fourth  century.  And 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  domestic  influence  is  now 
more  salutary  and  powerful  upon  national  and  individ- 
ual character  than  it  was  then.  Christian  mothers  and 
Christian  fathers  are  certainly  not  more  devoted  to  the 
nurture  of  the  young,  nor  are  Christian  children  more 


18 


dutiful.  It  is  impossible  to  come  to  any  other  conclu- 
sion, when  we  remember  that  it  was  in  the  third  and 
fourth  centuries  that  an  Athanasius,  a  Basil,  a  Chrysos- 
tom,  and  an  Augustine  grew  to  strength  and  glory. 
It  can  not  be  forgotten  what  mothers  were  theirs,  nor 
in  what  homes  they  were  nurtured,  for  greatness  here 
and  immortality  hereafter.  We  may  not  claim,  then, 
that  the  domestic  virtues  have  gained  any  thing  in 
value  or  beauty;  nor  that  the  marriage  vow  is  more 
sacred,  nor  that  home  is  a  purer  and  happier  place 
than  they  were  far  back  in,  what  some  progressives 
would  style,  the  twilight  period  of  manners  and  refine- 
ment. 

Leaving  institutions,  I  would  extend  this  inquiry  to 
the  human  mind  itself,  and  to  the  highest  range  of  its 
efforts.  In  accordance  with  a  favorite  speculative 
fiction  of  our  day,  which  teaches  that  the  world  in  all 
its  phases  of  conscious  life,  has  advanced  by  regular 
stages,  from  the  physical  to  the  moral,  and  from  the 
moral  to  the  spiritual,  it  is  often  confidently  maintained 
that  the  human  mind  is  now  a  stronger  and  keener  in- 
strument than  in  early  days;  that  it  is  not  only  more 
versatile  and  discursive,  but  more  intensely  and  pro- 
foundly reflective;  that  it  holds  questions  of  subtlety, 
and  mystery,  and  remoteness  with  a  firmer  grasp;  and, 
briefly,  that  in  the  thin,  bottomless,  and  starless  region 
of  pure  metaphysics,  it  walks  with  a  firmer  tread,  and 
sheds  a  clearer  light.  The  whole  supposition  is  as  un- 
true as  the  general  principle  which  suggested  it  is  ab- 


19 

surd.  It  is  a  question  of  fact,  not  of  speculative  con- 
jecture. To  the  facts  then  let  us  go.  It  will  not  be 
denied  by  any  one  familiar  with  the  forms  and  objects 
of  ancient  thought,  that  we  received  from  it  the  very 
science,  as  well  as  art  of  thinking,  or  that  from  it  has 
been  gathered  the  seed-wheat  of  every  subsequent  har- 
vest. The  wise  ancients  anticipated  us  in  all  the  great 
problems  of  thought.  So  that  if  we  would  seek  the 
essence  and  relations  of  things,  we  must  follow  the 
Egyptians;  if  we  would  know  their  power  and  har- 
mony, we  must  go  to  the  Greeks;  or  if  we  would  rise 
to  their  origin  and  end,  we  must  mount  to  the  sov- 
ereign heights  occupied  by  the  Hebrews.  On  all  these 
themes,  (and  there  is  none  in  metaphysics  that  may 
not  be  resolved  into  one  or  the  other,)  they  exhibited 
an  intense,  self-sustained,  and  sublime  reflective  capaci- 
ty, which  the  moderns  have  in  vain  tried  to  parallel. 
If  we  move  at  all  along  that  shifting  horizon  which 
divides  the  visible  and  invisible,  the  finite  and  infinite, 
here  shadowed  with  earthly  mists,  and  there  gleaming 
with  heavenly  light,  we  must  move  in  paths  hewed  out 
by  their  solemn  and  patient  toil.  They  thought  not 
as  a  gymnastic  exercise  for  the  mind,  but  under  the 
stress  of  an  imaginative  and  spiritual  melancholy, 
which  forced  the  mysteries  of  life  into  contact  with 
the  pilgrim  soul,  and  tinged  the  deepest  processes  of 
the  intellect  with  the  sad  seriousness  of  a  religious 
emotion.  Introversion,  contemplation,  depth,  intensity, 
and   continuous   grasp,  were  their   characteristics,  as 


20 


discursive  investigation,  critical  analysis,  and  laborious 
induction  are  ours.  They  made  object,  subject.  We 
make  subject,  object.  They  sought  to  know  nature, 
that  they  might  wonder  and  adore  it.  We  seek  to 
know  it  that  we  may  use  it.  They  labored  down  to 
the  root,  we  up  to  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  life.  They 
toiled  for  the  ultimate,  and  often  the  unattainable,  we 
for  the  proximate  and  always  attainable. 

Whether,  then,  we  measure  the  strength  of  the  hu- 
man mind  by  its  capacity  to  soar  into  those  far-off, 
shadowy,  golden  heights,  where  thought  and  feeling 
fold  their  wings,  and  brood  over  the  infinite  treasures 
of  faith;  or  by  its  ability  to  wear  the  armor  and  wield 
the  grosser  weapons  of  demonstrative  reasoning,  we 
must  admit  that  its  past  is  in  no  danger  of  an  eclipse. 
Plato  is  yet  without  a  rival  in  the  first,  as  the  great 
Stagirite  is  in  the  second.  It  has  been  said  that  an 
Aristotle  might  have  been  formed  out  of  the  rubbish 
of  fallen  Adam.  So  I  had  almost  said  the  sinews  of 
modern  intellect  have  been  drawn  from  the  graves  of 
the  ancient  dead. 

If  we  pass  from  the  mind  itself  to  those  grand  repos- 
itories of  its  thought,  Literature  and  Philosophy,  we 
shall  be  brought  to  a  similar  conclusion.  We  shall 
find  that  their  advance  in  direct  power,  over  life  and 
character,  is  not  so  great  as  we  are  wont  to  suppose. 
We  shall  find,  too,  that  whatever  may  be  that  advance, 
it  must  be  traced  to  the  influence  of  a  divine  tradition, 
to  the   energies  and  resources  of  Christian  thought, 


21 

rather  than  to  the  independent  labors  of  man.  It  may 
be  affirmed  of  Literature,  Philosophy,  and  Art,  as  it  has 
been  affirmed  of  Government,  that  if  they  stand  on  a 
higher  platform,  and  sweep  a  loftier  range,  it  is  because 
they  have  been  lifted  to  them  by  a  power  extraneous 
to  themselves. 

If  we  compare  the  new  with  the  old,  it  will  be  found 
that  Literature  has  acquired  a  greater  variety  of  powers, 
without,  as  a  whole,  becoming  more  powerful.  What 
it  has  gained  in  diversity  and  affluence,  it  has  lost  in 
simplicity  and  harmony.  Modern  genius,  while  rioting 
in  a  very  profusion  of  the  richest  materials  of  imagina- 
tive creation,  has  often  confessed  itself  unable  to  im- 
prove, or  even  to  rival  the  enchanting  grace  of  the  old 
forms.  History  and  Keligion  have  opened  new  worlds 
for  the  dreaming  soul,  where  all  aspects  of  life  and  na- 
ture put  on  a  more  awful  grandeur,  and  yield  a  more 
quickening  inspiration.  But  the  larger  field,  the  sub- 
limer  theme,  the  stronger  stimulant  have  not  secured 
truer  copies  of  the  hopes  and  fears,  the  joys  and  griefs 
of  our  common  nature,  or  tenderer  appeals  to  the  finer 
sentiments  of  the  heart,  than  those  which  thousands  of 
years  ago,  drew  weeping  and  wondering  crowds  at  the 
Grecian  Olympiads,  or  woke  from  the  captive  Hebrews, 
that  loud  wail  of  expiring  nationality,  which  swelled 
the  waters  of  Babylon  with  the  tears  of  an  exiled  race. 
I  repeat,  then,  that  notwithstanding  the  multiplied 
forms  of  genius,  and  the  vast  expenditure  of  effort 
which  have  entered  into  Modern  Literature,  if  it  be  a 


22 

better  and  nobler  force  than  that  of  the  olden  time,  it 
is  because  the  Man  of  Nazareth  hath  lived  and  labored 
here.  If  a  Dante  has  made  the  lower  world  more  an 
open  secret;  if  a  Shakespeare  has  walked  the  dark  and 
turbid  round  of  human  passions,  with  a  more  familiar 
step;  if  a  Milton's  "adventurous  song"  has  dared 

"  Things  unattempted  yet  in  prose  or  rhyme," 

it  is  because  the  Word  of  Life  gave  them  a  surer  lamp 
and  a  stronger  staff;  not  because  they  were  cast  in  a 
finer  mold  or  were  made  of  better  stuff  than 

"  The  blind  old  bard  of  Scio's  isle ;" 

or  he  who  sang  in  stern  and  sinewy  verse,  the  torture 
and  the  freedom  of  Prometheus,  or  yet  "sad  Electra's 
poet." 

The  same  judgment  will  hold  good  if  applied  to  those 
other  departments  of  aesthetic  effort,  Painting,  Sculp- 
ture, and  Architecture.  Without  dwelling  on  these,  I 
proceed  to  ask  what  modern  life  has  done  for  Philoso- 
phy, considered  as  representative  of  the  labors  of  spec- 
ulative reason.  If  we  make  a  true  answer  it  must  be 
a  sad  one.  It  is  melancholy  to  read  the  record  of  this 
giant  faculty.  For  of  what  waste  of  strength,  of  what 
fruitless  toils  and  bootless  agonies  does  it  not  tell  us? 
Tied  by  its  own  instincts  to  questions  of  vastness  and 
obscurity,  which,  though  baffling,  have  exalted  and 
invigorated   its   powers;  forced   by  its  own  pride   to 


2 


grapple  with  the  secrets  of  being;  driven  by  its  own 
passionate  curiosity  to  repeat  over  and  over  its  worst 
failures;  it  has  seemed  through  all  the  ages  like  another 
Titan  chained  to  the  rock,  a  prey  to  the  vulture,  a 
sport  to  the  winds  and  waves.  Unaided,  it  has  not 
taken  a  single  one  from  the  list  of  unsolved  metaphysi- 
cal problems.  It  has  drawn  distinctions,  traced  boun- 
daries, exploded  errors,  and  thoroughly  sounded  the 
channels  of  speculation.  But  on  all  ultimate  questions, 
it  is  to-day  sure  of  a  haven  of  rest  only  as  it  ceases  from 
its  own  solitary  strivings,  and  floats  on  buoys  thrown 
to  it  from  the  Ark  of  Revelation.  System  has  followed 
system,  each  in  turn  claiming  the  power  to  solve  the 
difficulties  and  conciliate  the  antagonisms;  but  each,  as 
it  has  touched  them,  has  sunk  away  in  mist  and  air. 
The  labors  of  speculative  reason  have  been  those  of 
the  treadmill,  showing  abundance  of  motion,  but  no 
real  advance.  Like  the  prodigal  son,  it  has  never 
strayed  far  away  from  Christian  tradition,  that  it  has 
not  squandered  its  heritage,  and  returned  in  hunger 
and  nakedness.  It  were  not  well  to  speak  loosely  on 
a  theme  so  momentous,  or  to  sacrifice  an  iota  of  truth 
to  the  symmetry  of  a  figure.  I  prefer,  then,  to  close 
my  own  remarks  on  this  point,  with  the  weighty  and 
well-considered  words  of  one  whose  candor  and  erudi- 
tion will  not  be  questioned.  I  refer  to  that  most  illus- 
trious metaphysical  intellect  of  the  century,  Sir  William 
Hamilton.  With  all  his  enthusiastic  love  for  this  region 
of  thought,  he  is  obliged  to  confess,  that  "the  past  his- 


•    24 

tory  of  Philosophy  has,  in  a  great  measure,  been  only 
a  history  of  variation  and  error." 

Did  time  allow,  it  would  be  easy  to  show  substantial- 
ly the  same  of  Ethical  Science,  so  far  as  it  has  claimed 
to  be  an  independent  invention  of  the  human  mind  * 

*  Ethical  studies,  as  a  whole,  have  been  unwisely  and  unfairly  conducted. 
Unwisely,  because  a  practical  divorce  has  been  suffered  to  obtain  between  Ethics 
and  Christianity.  Unfairly,  because  while  seeming  to  borrow  nothing  from  rev- 
elation, or  rather  while  professing  to  follow  original  and  independent  methods  of 
inquiry,  ethical  science  has  in  reality  been  largely  helped  by  revelation,  to  every 
important  result  at  which  it  has  arrived.  Indeed,  if  we  examine  the  topics  whose 
successful  treatment  it  claims  as  its  chief  triumph,  e.  g.,  the  nature  of  virtue,  the 
ultimate  ground  of  moral  obligation,  the  structure  and  authority  of  conscience,  its 
normal  and  abnormal  working,  and  the  means  for  restoring  it  to  its  rightful  con- 
trol over  moral  life ;  we  shall  find  that  its  feet  stumbled,  and  its  voice  stammered, 
and  its  sight  was  as  blindness  itself,  until  it  clandestinely  appropriated  the  guid- 
ance of  an  authority  above  and  independent  of  itself.  Ethical  science,  unless  it 
part  with  all  its  dignity,  and  drop  into  a  barren  exercise  of  speculative  power,  can 
propose  to  itself  as  a  final  aim,  nothing  short  of  the  delineation  of  perfect  good- 
ness, and  the  production  of  a  perfectly  good  man.  But  both  these  tasks,  it  finds 
finished  to  its  hand  by  revelation.  But  still  it  clings  to  its  own  fragmentary  and 
one-sided  ideal ;  and  in  substance  declines  to  avail  itself  of  the  only  means  which 
can  effectively  harmonize  the  real  man  with  the  ideal  conception.  Its  relation  to 
Christianity,  instead  of  being  one  of  loyal  subordination  and  grateful  indebted- 
ness, has  been  one  of  ill-disguised  hostility,  or  at  least  of  proud  and  injudicious 
independence.  And  as  a  consequence,  we  have  only  to  look  at  its  record  for  the 
last  three  hundred  years,  to  see  the  sad  proofs  of  its  gigantic  but  fruitless  labors. 
During  that  period,  it  has  gone  on  with  here  and  there  an  exception  created  by 
Christian  thinking,  boasting  and  failing,  confessing  and  retracting,  altering  and 
amending,  until  now  we  see  it  toiling  slowly  up  to  heights  of  moral  contempla- 
tion, which  a  proper  humility  would  have  enabled  it  to  occupy  at  the  start.  Nor 
is  accountability  for  this  disastrous  separation  of  moral  science  from  religious 
truth,  to  be  charged  solely  to  philosophers,  with  whom  inquiry  loses  its  charm  so 
soon  as  it  ceases  to  be,  in  form,  at  least,  strictly  independent.  If  there  be  cen- 
sure, it  must  be  shared  by  the  chosen  guardians  of  theology,  whose  duty  it  was  to 
maintain  a  fixed  and  determinate  alliance  between  Divinity  and  Ethics.  In  the 
primitive  periods  of  the  Church,  there  was  no  lack  of  Christian  Ethics.    But  so 


25 

If  these  judgments,  then,  be  founded  in  truth — if  the 
testimony  adduced  on  these  several  points  be  reliable, 
then  is  the  conclusion  amply  proved,  that  the  age  in 
which  we  live — prodigious  as  have  been  its  activities — 
has  not  added  to,  or  essentially  changed  the  leading 
and  permanent  agencies  of  human  progress.  For,  if 
the  whole  of  modern  life  has  not  multiplied  or  radically 
altered  them,  then  it  is  impossible  that  any  part  of  that 
life,  as  our  own  age,  should  have  done  so.  And,  more- 
over, if  during  so  vast  a  period  of  the  collective  life  of 
the  race,  tradition  has  maintained  its  supremacy  over 
invention,  then  is  it  certain  that  it  has  done  so  in  our 
own  time,  which  closes  up  that  period.  I  assert  it, 
then,  as  a  truth,  that  human  progress  is  mainly  depend- 
ent on  Tradition,  and  by  consequence,  subordinately, 
upon  Invention. 

Nor  is  this  a  barren  abstraction,  which  it  is  as  well 
not  to  know  as  to  know.  Had  I  so  regarded  it,  I  would 
not  have  consumed  the  hour  in  its  discussion.     I  believe 

soon  as  the  revival  of  classical  learning,  and  the  old  metaphysics  began  to  pagan- 
ize the  studies  of  Christian  scholars,  so  soon  began  the  dissolution  between  theo- 
logical and  moral  science.  It  was  the  effect  of  the  scholastic  system,  so  far  as  it 
developed  itself  in  fashioning  the  mediaeval  methods  of  liberal  education,  to  place 
Ethics  on  a  level  with  the  natural  sciences,  and  below  Logic,  Rhetoric,  and  Meta- 
physics. It  was  in  this  inferior  and  degrading  position,  that  the  divines  of  the 
Reformation  found  this  science.  They  did  nothing  to  restore  it  to  its  rightful 
rank.  Absorbed  in  questions  of  doctrine  and  discipline,  they  hardly  crossed  the 
obvious  limits  of  pure  divinity.  And  so  a  separation  carelessly  begun,  was  per- 
mitted to  be  disastrously  continued.  In  this  fact  we  have  the  historical  explana- 
tion of  the  origin  and  growth  and  perilous  license  of  the  refined  Paganism  taught, 
in  the  English  and  Scotch  universities,  for  two  or  three  generations,  under  the 
name  and  form  of  moral  science. 

4 


26 


it  to  be,  on  the  contrary,  one  of  the  great  hinges  of 
thought  and  action.  If  fairly  admitted,  it  would  affect 
the  profoundest  tendencies  of  moral  and  metaphysical 
speculation,  and  make  itself  felt  in  the  most  practical 
questions  of  education  and  reform.  Once  give  it  play, 
and  it  would  sweep  into  nothingness  many  a  fatal  delu- 
sion and  mistaken  policy  of  the  time.  But  permit  me 
to  direct  attention,  more  in  detail,  to  a  few  of  its  impor- 
tant inferences. 

I.  It  would  affect  character,  and  consequently,  all  that 
character  is  concerned  in  producing.  Whatever  affects 
character,  affects  the  highest  symbol  of  influence.  For 
character  is  above  single  truths;  it  is  higher  than  sys- 
tems, and  stronger  than  tendencies.  It  represents  the 
present  state  and  actual  force  of  an  organized  assem- 
blage of  living  powers.  To  shape  character,  then,  is  to 
shape  that  which  shapes  every  thing  else.  Now  there 
are  three  classes  of  men,  belonging  respectively  to  the 
three  great  divisions  of  time — the  antiquarian,  the  rad- 
ical, and  the  dreamer,  or  the  man  of  the  past,  the  man 
of  the  present,  and  the  man  of  the  future.  They  are 
all  men  of  hobbies  and  fancies — one-sided  in  their 
modes  of  thought,  and  without  balance  in  their  schemes 
of  action — each  claiming  too  much  and  conceding  too 
little.  To  make  such  men  useful,  they  must  be  taken 
out  of  their  narrow  circles. 

The  antiquarian  must  be  made  to  feel  around  him 
the  surgings  of  life,  and  to  hear  the  moans  and  the 
shouts  of  the  toiling  million,  as  with  militant  and  un- 


27 

conquerable  energy,  they  wrestle  for  peace  and  light 
and  liberty.  He  must  be  brought  to  see  that  all  good 
is  not  in  the  past,  nor  all  evil  in  the  present;  and  to 
admit  the  folly  of  helping  the  world  onward  by  setting 
it  backward,  or  of  improving  any  present  period,  by 
servile  imitation  of  a  dead  one.  He  must  be  taught 
the  unreality  and  deception  of  those  moonlight  views 
of  the  ages  which  hide  the  red  front  of  battle,  and 
beautify  the  dark  Gethsemanes  of  betrayed  and  abused 
humanity.  The  tombs  of  the  prophets,  now,  indeed, 
all  garnished  and  covered  with  verdurous  pomp,  are 
places  of  quiet  and  wisdom;  but  he  must  be  told  that 
his  years  will  vanish  as  dust,  if  spent  at  their  portals. 
Now,  it  is  in  the  power  of  that  great  truth  which  has 
been  urged  to  do  all  this.  It  tells  the  man  of  the  past 
that  those  mighty  energies  of  progress  were  ordained 
of  God  for  the  living,  not  the  dead — that  they  have 
meaning  and  worth  only  as  they  assert  themselves 
amid  living  issues  and  strike  for  present  victory;  that 
they  bear  with  them  the  youth  and  promise,  as  well  as 
the  old  age  and  memory  of  the  race. 

The  radical,  too,  amid  his  extremes,  is  but  a  bundle 
of  waste  forces.  Impatient  of  existing  evils,  and  of  the 
slow  remedies  applied  to  cure  them;  wearied  with  the 
tardy  growth  of  the  seed  himself  has  planted,  and  still 
more  with  the  delay  which  besets  all  plans  of  reform, 
he  becomes  the  victim,  alternately,  of  despair  and  pre- 
sumption. Assured  that  the  world  ought  to  be  better 
than  it  is,  and  that  he  was  put  here  to  help  make  it  so, 


28 


he  one  day  retires  from  the  field  embittered  and  dis- 
couraged, and  the  next  enters  it  again  elated  and  con- 
fident, over-estimating  his  own  inventions,  and  trusting 
too  little  in  those  central  wheels  of  movement,  mortised 
and  adjoined  by  the  hand,  or  at  least,  under  the  direc- 
tion of  God.  And  soon  he  chafes  away  his  strength 
against  the  hard  granite  of  his  pride,  or  lies  down  in 
indhTerence  to  sleep  and  to  die.  Too  much,  alas!  of 
earnestness,  and  sensibility,  and  hope  has  perished  thus. 
Now  it  is  the  effect  of  a  thorough  conviction  of  the 
main  thought  of  this  discourse,  to  moderate  and  guide 
such  a  character,  to  give  him  poise,  and  patience,  and 
faith.  It  tells  him  that  neither  God  nor  his  plans  are 
in  haste — that  in  their  very  motion  there  is  rest,  and 
in  the  changes  they  work  an  appearance  of  stability. 
It  draws  him  away  from  his  own  schemes,  which  like 
air  bubbles,  successively  float  off  and  burst  on  the  sea 
of  life,  to  those  grand  instrumentalities — the  Church, 
the  State,  the  Family,  and  to  the  records  of  spoken 
and  written  thought — instrumentalities,  as  he  will  see, 
bruised  and  scarred  by  battling  centuries,  and  yet  fresh 
with  the  dew  and  the  light  of  earth's  morning,  and 
bearing  onward  all  that  is  left  of  the  world's  shattered 
hope  of  a  millenium.  It  tells  him  to  labor  within  and 
for  these,  to  purify  them  if  they  are  corrupt,  to  restore 
them  if  they  are  decayed,  to  emancipate  them  if  they 
are  enslaved,  and  in  works  like  these  to  find  the  spirit 
and  scope  of  true  reform. 

But  not  less  salutary  is  the  influence  of  the  principle 


29 


here  urged  upon  the  man  of  the  future,  than  upon  the 
antiquarian  and  the  radical.  This  sort  of  character  has 
a  language  of  his  own,  vague  and  swelling  in  its  terms, 
yet  oracular  in  its  tone.  He  looks  down  with  magnan- 
imous compassion  on  the  failures  and  errors  of  other 
days.  He  patronizes  the  measures  and  labors  of  the 
present,  but  finds  nothing  in  them  to  secure  his  faith 
and  co-operation.  They  are  too  high  or  too  low;  too 
broad  or  too  narrow;  too  speculative  or  too  practical. 
He  lays  his  soft  palm  on  aching  brows  and  wearied 
arms,  and  bids  them  wait  for  the  Coming  Church,  the 
Coming  State,  the  Coming  Man.  Man,  he  says,  can 
never  be  inspired  through  his  memory.  Genius  looks 
forward,  not  backward.  Power  is  the  child  of  hope. 
Those  who  would  be  great,  must  have  their  ideal  in 
the  future,  not  the  past.  Living  men  can  not  grow  on 
the  food  of  monks  and  worms.  So  from  his  imaginary 
Pisgah,  he  discourses  to  the  toiling,  heaving  masses  be- 
low. Such  men,  to  be  of  any  account,  must  be  unde- 
ceived. Bring  them  in  contact  with  such  views  as 
have  been  presented,  and  their  dreams  dissolve  into 
common  vapor.  From  them  they  will  learn  that  the 
future  can  be  seen  only  through  the  past,  and  has 
interest  only  because  of  the  past — that  the  future  is  a 
relation,  a  possibility — the  field  of  God's  vision — that 
the  past  only  is  to  us  a  reality,  a  fact,  a  force — that  it 
only  contains  the  pattern  life,  and  the  regenerative 
energy  of  humanity.  They  will  learn,  too,  from  the 
same  source,  that  whoever  would  sing,  or  paint,  or 


30 


sculpture,  or  think  for  the  race,  must  make  his  own  its 
memory  and  associations. 

II.  The  relative  superiority  of  Tradition  to  Inven- 
tion, is  a  principle  that  would  modify  the  leading 
forms  of  thought.  In  Philosophy,  it  would  raise  Ontol- 
ogy above  Ideology,  Being  above  Consciousness,  Object 
above  Subject,  Truth  above  the  human  measure  of  it; 
and  doing  this  would  strike  at  the  seed  root  of  moral 
skepticism. 

In  Civil  Government,  it  would  confirm  the  authority 
of  law  over  will,  of  rational  liberty  over  rebellious 
license. 

In  Keligion,  it  would  establish  the  supremacy  of  Eev- 
elation  over  reason — of  organic  over  individual  life — 
of  universal  consent  over  private  judgment.  It  would 
lead,  also,  to  a  higher  appreciation  of  Church  life,  as 
the  binding  ligature  of  all  moral  unity;  as  furnishing, 
together  with  a  perfect  human  ideal,  the  only  effective 
means  to  realize  it;  and  as  keeping  simultaneously  be- 
fore the  world,  its  morning,  noon,  and  evening — prom- 
ises and  their  fulfillments — prophecies  and  their  verifi- 
cations— covenants  and  their  objects — in  other  words, 
man  fallen,  man  redeemed,  and  man  perfected. 

III.  As  a  consequence  of  such  influence  in  these 
several  directions,  it  would  produce  a  more  living  con- 
viction of  the  Unity  of  the  Race,  and  of  History,  its 
record,  as  well  as  of  the  Providence  who  works  through 
both. 

I  believe  I  have  uttered  no  sentiment  alien  to  the 


31 


spirit  of  this  Institution.  I  believe  rather,  that  I  have 
only  interpreted,  with  reference  to  a  single  subject,  the 
principles  of  its  founders  and  guardians.  If  so,  I  shall 
be  content. 

I  have  no  words  adequately  to  set  forth  my  sense  of 
the  honor,  the  danger,  and  the  magnitude  of  the  trust 
committed  to  us,  as  inheritors  of  the  mighty  past,  and 
living  dispensers  of  the  powers  of  human  progress. 

God  grant  that  we  may  have  the  will  and  the 
strength  to  quit  ourselves  as  men  worthy  of  His 
Church,  worthy  of  the  sacred  cause  of  learning,  worthy 
of  the  age  and  the  country  in  which  our  lot  has  been 
cast. 


